


gods and heroes (reprise)

by GuardianKarenTerrier



Series: Writing Prompts [6]
Category: Original Work
Genre: & Villains, Flash Fic, Gen, Heroes & Heroines, Immortality, Immortality kinda sucks, Superpowers, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 22:45:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16942131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuardianKarenTerrier/pseuds/GuardianKarenTerrier
Summary: “Is she coming?” Imp asks, after the silence has stretched for far too long.“You know she’ll be here,” Seyshells says, stepping away and turning back towards the cabin. “She’s always here.”Imp follows him back, but he doesn’t say anything more.Seyshells can always count on Aimid to join him eventually.  Their relationship's more solid than the ground beneath them.The same’s not true for Imp and Turri, and considering the reason that Aimid's late, Imp can't be sure that Turri's coming this time at all.





	gods and heroes (reprise)

**Author's Note:**

> this was written for the image prompt for @caffeinewitchcraft‘s caffeine challenge #28 on tumblr (an image looking down on a misty forest). these are the same characters and universe from Hourglass, but since this was written as a stand-alone and can be read without Hourglass i chose to post it separately.

“They say the gods used to live down there, you know.”

“Hey, Seyshells.” Imp turns from the view of the misted-over mountains, bracing his elbows on the railing and accepting a steaming cup of coffee from the older hero. “Gods and heroes both, right?” He takes a sip and makes a face. “Where did you even get french vanillla? No one’s used it in a hundred years.”

“Hundred fifty, actually.” Seyshells leans on the railing himself, looking down into the mist. “There’s always some of anything left, if you know where to look."

"Dairy products, though.” Imp takes another sip anyway. The coffee isn’t _bad_.

Seyshells shrugs. He flicks a peeling bit of paint off the railing and watches it go tumbling out of view. “People get creative. I wasn’t sure I wanted to ask how they made it, to be honest.”

Imp snorts into his cup. “Turri would roast you so bad for maligning the scientific method like that.”

Seyshells sighs. “There are- more misconceptions in that sentence than I’m willing to deal with this early in the morning. Is Turri coming?”

“Dunno,” Imp admits. “Got a solid maybe this time, which is better than his usual response.”

“What’s his usual response?”

“Not one I can repeat in polite company.  Which you aren’t, so- cursing, mostly.” Imp drains his cup and sets it on the railing. The railing’s not really large enough, and it balances there precariously, but they have more mugs back in the cabin. He’s not that worried about it. “Anyone recognise you anymore?”

“No one’s recognised me in decades,” Seyshells says tiredly. “You and Turri were right. It is easier.”

“Less fulfilling, though.” Imp might have to move the cup. He has too strong an urge to bat it off the railing, send it flying out beneath them to shatter miles away. “How’s Aimid?”

“More fulfilled than us?” Seyshells says wryly. “At a conference for the new heroes. We’ve come back around, it looks like.”

Imp hesitates.

“No,” Seyshells says, unbearably gently. “There’s no one. Not like us, not even like Turri. We’re still finding out about the villains, but- none of the heroes are demonstrating any longer a lifespan than the usual.”

“Oh.” The urge to send the cup flying is stronger. “I mean, Turri said it was unlikely. That if we were the only four it wasn’t likely to show up again.”

“There was Cat.” Seyshells looks at the cup like he wants to send it flying, too. “He’d have lived as long as us.”

“Yeah, but he didn’t,” Imp says, harshly, and turns to swipe at the railing instead.

The cup goes flying as the shock trembles through the wood.

Both of them watch it fall in silence.

“Is she coming?” Imp asks, after that silence has stretched for far too long.

“You know she’ll be here,” Seyshells says, stepping away and turning back towards the cabin. “She’s always here.”

Imp follows him back, but he doesn’t say anything more.

Seyshells can always count on Aimid to join him eventually.

The same’s not true for Imp and Turri.

The worst of it, the part that wrenches at Imp even now, is that Turri hadn’t even been a villain that long in the grand scheme of things. They’d been partners longer. _Imp’s_ villain phase had lasted longer.

But Turri is the only one of them that didn’t start off a hero.

Imp wonders if things might have been different, if he’d just- if he’d just told Turri from the start why he’d been so determined to stop him.

There aren’t any common powers that come with functional immortality. There never have been.

And now, now that there are villains and heroes again after hundreds of years of drought, Imp’s terrified that they’re going to see it again.

Turri’s never really recovered. Having an unlimited time frame to pursue therapy makes it just as easy to procrastinate and put it off, as it turns out. Imp’s not even sure _he’s_ ever really recovered and Aimid and Seyshells had found him when he was still young. They hadn’t realised what Turri’s powers actually did until much later.

Imp changes his mind when they reach the cabin, turning off onto a path into the forest instead.

“Impervious?” Seyshells says, stopping in the doorway.

“It’s fine,” Imp assures him with a strained smile. “I’m just going for a walk. And it’s been just Imp for a while now., actually.”

“Sorry, I lose track,” Seyshells admits, before stepping into the cabin. He watches Imp a moment longer. “If you’re sure, Imp.”

He finds a lake, an hour’s walk into the woods.

He finds Turri at the lake.

“So were you planning on telling us you came at all?” Imp asks dryly, sidling up alongside him and picking up a flat stone, turning it over in his hands. “Or were you just going to sleep out here?”

Turri scoffs and reaches over to pluck the stone from Imp’s hands, twisting to throw it out across the lake. It skips twice and sinks.

Imp finds a new rock.

“The camping’s your thing, Impulse,” Turri mutters.

Imp’s rock skips five times and sends up a plume of spray before it sinks. “They haven’t found anyone with powers that should affect their lifespans.”

“Yeah, well.” Turri picks up a stone from the bank, still wet from the lake’s edge, and turns it over in his hands before dropping it into Imp’s hands instead. “ _Haven’t found_ and _should_ are qualifiers, aren’t they.”

“Come back to the cabin,” Imp says, instead of answering that. “We’ve missed you.”

“ _You’ve_ missed me,” Turri corrects, standing and brushing dirt off his pants. “The other two would be just as happy if I never showed up again, I think.”

“That’s not true,” Imp says, softly. “Ter, you can’t really think that’s true.”

“How long did it take for Seyshells to bring up Cat this time?” Turri starts to walk away, further into the woods, and Imp scrambles to follow him. “Nine lives and the man blames me for the loss of every one.” He kicks at a tree root that’s crept over a path. “I wasn’t even a villain for the last three. I wasn’t even an _adult_ for the sixth.”

“Ter, you’re pretty regularly not an adult.” Imp hops over the root to catch up with his friend. “You have to admit it’s kind of hard to keep track, sometimes.”

“Not my point, Imp,” Turri says. “It doesn’t matter to them either way. It doesn’t matter that I fought _with_ you all those years, it only matters to them that I fought _against_ you first.”

“I mean, they _were_ kind of responsible for my well-being at the time,” Imp says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Which you weren’t, uh, great for.”

Turri’s shoulders go tense.

Imp’s not taking that back, though. Imp’s never been much of a liar.

Finally, his back still to Imp, Turri says, “There’s a kid with the turritopsis mutation. _My_ mutation. And Aimid hasn’t found them yet. She knows what to look for, this time, and she hasn’t seen them yet.”

“There’s a-” Imp blinks. “But that’s- that’s-”

“Not possible, yeah, I _know_ ,” Turri snaps. “Unless someone found one of the old labs. This resurgence- it didn’t come out of nowhere. Someone’s playing gods and heroes, and whoever it is knows where to find research on _both_ of us.”

Imp closes his eyes. No matter how many years pass, he can’t stop seeing the labs in his nightmares, Turri age-regressed and shaking. Imp hadn’t known, then, how Turri’s powers worked. He hadn’t known that it took a certain amount of physical damage to reset Turri’s age.

Imp had volunteered to be studied. Turri hadn’t.

It had made all the difference in the world, that Aimid and Seyshells had found and adopted Imp.

That no one had found Turri.

“Ter, this kid,” Imp starts.

Turri sighs and turns back to him, fishing a balled piece of paper out his pocket and tossing it to Imp.

Imp fumbles, because he hadn’t realised he was still running his thumb over the river rock compulsively, but he catches the paper without dropping either object. He lets the stone fall into his own pocket to uncrumple the paper, scanning it rapidly.

He breathes out in relief.

“He’s okay, right now,” Turri says, hooking his hands in his pockets and glaring at the ground. “Has a family, still. But we’re secondary guardians. Nothing’s- this kid’s gonna have a place to go.”

Turri never talks like this, with his grammar falling apart, with an accent Imp had thought decades gone.

“Yeah,” Imp says. “Yeah, of course he will.”

They’ve had hundreds of years to learn from their mistakes.

They’ve had hundreds of years to learn not to repeat them.


End file.
